books.google.com - In June 1993, John Connally, a legend in Texas and a powerful figure in national politics for several crucial decades of this turbulent century, died of complications of pulmonary fibrosis, a condition brought on by wounds sustained from an assassin's bullet that fateful day in Dallas - November 22,...http://books.google.com/books/about/In_History_s_Shadow.html?id=wgoDjDw2Bp8C&utm_source=gb-gplus-shareIn History's Shadow

In History's Shadow: An American Odyssey

In June 1993, John Connally, a legend in Texas and a powerful figure in national politics for several crucial decades of this turbulent century, died of complications of pulmonary fibrosis, a condition brought on by wounds sustained from an assassin's bullet that fateful day in Dallas - November 22, 1963. In History's Shadow, finished right before Connally's death, is the story of his life in politics, told with an unmistakable Texas twang. It was a life of almost Shakespearean range, marked by great triumphs as well as personal tragedy and heartbreak. He wanted to be President, but that is the only ambition that eluded him. He lived under thirteen Presidents and served under Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. He knew American government - and the men who ran it - as intimately as anyone in our time. In History's Shadow is a true epic of the American century. Raised in rural poverty during the Depression in a farm family of seven children, Connally retained a deep-seated love of the hardscrabble Texas land his whole life. "I am part of a dwindling breed shaped by the soil of rural America . . . you don't engage the land, let it punish and feed you, and not understand the cycles of life." He enrolled at the University of Texas at age sixteen, determined to train as a trial lawyer. While still in law school, he worked for the campaign of an aspiring congressman named Lyndon Johnson, and followed him to Washington. Thus began an intimate political friendship that would have a decisive effect on Connally's life and career, as the rough-and-tumble young Texans rose to positions of national and international influence. Yet as closely as he served Johnson, and later President Richard Nixon asSecretary of the Treasury in the early 1970s, it was always events in his home state that gained John Connally his most lasting notoriety. After a brief stint as Secretary of the Navy under John F. Kennedy he ran for governor of Texas, and it was in his first term that he accompanied P

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In history's shadow: an American odyssey

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Connally died in June 1993 of complications from the wounds he received when John F. Kennedy was assassinated 30 years ago. Although he enjoyed a full political life--campaign manager and adviser to ... Read full review

About the author (1994)

Nellie Connally, the former Idanell Brill, met John Bowden Connally at the University of Texas; the two college sweethearts were married on December 21, 1940. Mrs. Connally served as the first lady of Texas from 1962 to 1969. The mother of four, Mrs. Connally still resides in Austin, Texas. Mickey Herskowitz has written numerous "New York Times "bestsellers and has been a longtime Connally friend.